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Dec. 4th, 2006 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhienellethI am just going to keep posting today, I guess.
Mark and I have started our semi-annual viewing of Band of Brothers. We watched the first episode yesterday, and it got me thinking. I mean, there have been other very well done movies, etc on WW II, but to me, this mini series is the brightest, most shining, evocative example. Mark shows it in his military history class every year at school, and I love that. We need reminders like this movie, because as a people we tend to forget the realities of things of this nature. In the moment, people are united in their grief or rage or tragedy or love, but time disintegrates that pretty quickly, and generations more so.
I have a good friend who's grandafther was actually in the 506th (the unit BofB is actually about). No he's not one of the characters featured in the mini, but he is pictured when they're doing the interviews. That's actually how Dennis found out. He was watching the set (which he'd borrowed from us) and had to pause the DVD to goggle, because there was his grandfather. Who, fortunately, is still alive. So he went to him and asked, and sure enough, Bill Winget was there, he was in Easy company, the whole bit.
In case you were wondering, the DVD set? Pretty much how it happened, down to the last detail. He did say that the portrayal of Lt. Sobel was slightly unfair, because even though yes, he was like that, his harshness was really what made them bond as a company and made them the unit they were once they went into the war. He also said the series overdramatized Speirs' run through the enemy held town, to which Dennis replied "But Grandpa, did he really do that?" "Yes, he really did." Ok, then. He charged through enemy occupied territory in front of tanks and enemy soldiers. Successfully. Um, how do you overdramatize that?
Those were the only two criticisms he had. He talked about the guy who went to the cleaners for his uniform, and ended up bringing back the uniforms of all the dead soldiers because he couldn't bear to leave them there when the woman asked. He's produced a photcopied book of all the pictures and memorabilia that he has from the war, which we got a copy of (you can buy them on ebay. I'm not sure what the search parameters are, but I can ask Dennis if anyone is really interested. It's a neat, neat, historical reference.)
We're really lucky to have a few of these guys left. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for them, at eighteen and twenty years old. This mini series allows us to glimpse that, to have at least a glimmer of that understanding, and not forget. And I think part of what makes it so powerful is that this isn't a fictionalized story based on the war, like Saving Private Ryan. These are real men, who really fought and died, and we're seeing it through their eyes. This series deserved every award it received, and then some.
I wonder if anyone's made some really brilliant icons from it? Cause I should have one or two in my rotation.
Mark and I have started our semi-annual viewing of Band of Brothers. We watched the first episode yesterday, and it got me thinking. I mean, there have been other very well done movies, etc on WW II, but to me, this mini series is the brightest, most shining, evocative example. Mark shows it in his military history class every year at school, and I love that. We need reminders like this movie, because as a people we tend to forget the realities of things of this nature. In the moment, people are united in their grief or rage or tragedy or love, but time disintegrates that pretty quickly, and generations more so.
I have a good friend who's grandafther was actually in the 506th (the unit BofB is actually about). No he's not one of the characters featured in the mini, but he is pictured when they're doing the interviews. That's actually how Dennis found out. He was watching the set (which he'd borrowed from us) and had to pause the DVD to goggle, because there was his grandfather. Who, fortunately, is still alive. So he went to him and asked, and sure enough, Bill Winget was there, he was in Easy company, the whole bit.
In case you were wondering, the DVD set? Pretty much how it happened, down to the last detail. He did say that the portrayal of Lt. Sobel was slightly unfair, because even though yes, he was like that, his harshness was really what made them bond as a company and made them the unit they were once they went into the war. He also said the series overdramatized Speirs' run through the enemy held town, to which Dennis replied "But Grandpa, did he really do that?" "Yes, he really did." Ok, then. He charged through enemy occupied territory in front of tanks and enemy soldiers. Successfully. Um, how do you overdramatize that?
Those were the only two criticisms he had. He talked about the guy who went to the cleaners for his uniform, and ended up bringing back the uniforms of all the dead soldiers because he couldn't bear to leave them there when the woman asked. He's produced a photcopied book of all the pictures and memorabilia that he has from the war, which we got a copy of (you can buy them on ebay. I'm not sure what the search parameters are, but I can ask Dennis if anyone is really interested. It's a neat, neat, historical reference.)
We're really lucky to have a few of these guys left. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for them, at eighteen and twenty years old. This mini series allows us to glimpse that, to have at least a glimmer of that understanding, and not forget. And I think part of what makes it so powerful is that this isn't a fictionalized story based on the war, like Saving Private Ryan. These are real men, who really fought and died, and we're seeing it through their eyes. This series deserved every award it received, and then some.
I wonder if anyone's made some really brilliant icons from it? Cause I should have one or two in my rotation.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 08:55 pm (UTC)Les icons.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 11:09 pm (UTC)